Truth & Consequences: A Miss Independent Novel

by Leach, Kiki

  As a few employees passed by the room, overhearing, she gave them a nasty look which sent them hurrying off in the opposite direction.

  Harold wrapped his hand around his chin, then crossed his arms. “How did you find out about all of this?”

  “Mo told me.” She placed both hands on her chest. “And we’re not together right now, so I’d appreciate it if you would keep quiet about all of it. Not many people know we were together as it was to begin with, mostly for reasons like this. And the last thing I need is more bad press that my mother can throw in my face, especially since she has no idea about any of it yet.”

  He became thoughtful and bobbed his head while keeping his eyes toward the ground. “Of course,” he told her. “Yeah, of course.”

  “Thanks.” Vanessa ducked her head to get a better look at the somber expression on his face. She knew then and there per her information that he had just received a solid blow to his ego. “I take it you didn’t know Olivia was the kind of woman to pull a stunt like this?”

  “No.”

  “Hm. I’m sorry.” She sighed. “But I’m just letting you know all of this not only as a heads up but to also let her know that if she comes near any one of my friends again, and that especially means Mo, she’ll be having to answer to me this time.” She bent forward, whispering. “And I sure as hell won’t be as nice to her about it as he was.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be talking to her about it myself later today.”

  “Good.”

  When another worker approached needing Harold’s attention, Vanessa nodded at him before grabbing a pile magazines off of the conference table and heading off down the hall.

  Back in her office, an impatient Sheila was now waiting in one of the chairs in front of her desk to speak to her about something she felt was more urgent than showing up on her stoop to tell her that she had blabbed to Nathan about Adrian and the baby.

  And even more than her need to confess that she had in fact had sex with Adrian as well.

  The minute Vanessa saw her through the glass window, she stopped and thought about turning around to head back down the elevator. What the hell could she want so damn early? And when she had just gotten there her damn self?

  But she knew that Sheila would wait all day to speak to her if she had to, which meant that once again, there was no way to escape her vile clutches.

  Clinching her teeth and passing Samantha’s empty desk, she stepped inside her office and slammed the door.

  A flummoxed Sheila whipped around in the chair and clutched her chest. She swallowed hard and leaned forward. “I’ve been waiting to talk to you--”

  “Oh, please forgive me for having shit to do during the day, like an actual job.” Vanessa motioned around her office and tilted her head, grimacing. “Speaking of which, I’m really starting think that you’re in need of a nine to five your damn self if only to keep you from being such a gotdamn busy body day in and day out. But it still won’t be here. Because I haven’t changed my mind again about you writing for the magazine. I don’t want to have to school your ass on that again, but I will if I have to--”

  Sheila quickly waved her hand. “I’m not here about that, V.”

  She dropped her set of magazines on the table and rounded her desk. “Then what the hell do you want, Sheila?”

  “A listening ear, that’s it.”

  “You’re aware that there are people who get paid to hear the shit you spew, right? I have a therapist I haven’t seen in a good while, but I can give you her number. Because I shouldn’t have to continue suffering while being the only one forced to listen to this shit for free.”

  Sheila purposely disregarded her comment and jumped up from the chair. “I slept with Nathan last night.”

  Disgusted, Vanessa made a face as if she was going to vomit all over the room. She clutched her chest with one hand and her stomach with the other and turned her head, making gagging noises.

  Once the feeling passed, which took at least a few minutes, she covered her mouth and turned her head to glare at her current nemesis. “Why the hell would you come here to tell me something like that when I haven’t even had lunch yet?!”

  “I came here to tell you because it’s YOUR FAULT, V!”

  She bent forward and scrunched her face in confusion. “My fault? Bitch have you once again lost every single part of your mind? What do I have do with YOU being unable to keep your legs closed for every Tom, DICK and Harry that happens to pass you by on the damn street?”

  “You told me when Nathan got out of jail to stroke his ego. He apparently needed a lot more than that.”

  “Were you a willing participant in the act?”

  Sheila sucked in her cheeks and wiggled her foot while darting her eyes across the room.

  Vanessa pointed. “And that’s exactly what I thought. Now get the hell out.” She took a seat in her chair and rolled closer to her desk.

  Sheila stomped forward and slammed her hands down in front of her.

  Vanessa placed her elbow next to her keyboard and lowered her glasses down to her nose. “Listen here, you thirsty trick. If you think I’m gonna let you try me at my job when I wouldn’t even let you try me inside my own damn house, then you’ve got another thing coming as well as that ass hitting the pavement just outside my damn window. Now get the hell out.”

  “Not until I get what I came her for, Vanessa.”

  “The free clinic is nowhere near here,” she said. “Try again.”

  Sheila made a face. “This isn’t funny, Vanessa!”

  “Who’s laughing?”

  She groaned. “I need to know what the hell I’m going to do! And now that I’ve slept with Adrian again --”

  “What?”

  “He showed up to my room after I left your house,” she said. “One thing led to another, and…” She dropped down in the chair and slapped a hand over her face, embarrassed. “Having sex with Nathan again is something I could probably classify as a pity fuck since it was right after he got home from jail, right?”

  “Wait a minute.” Vanessa cringed. “Nathan got home last night – did you…” She paused. “Did you fuck them both in the same day?!”

  Sheila slowly nodded her head.

  Vanessa felt like vomiting again. “You are so, SO damn nasty, BLECH!”

  “It’s not like I planned for any of it to happen the way it did!” Sheila shot back.

  “Bitch, you’re like an STD just waiting to happen. Your vagina must me stretched from here to Kalamazoo.”

  “Could you at least back off from the insults, Vanessa?”

  “What the hell do you want me to do in the meantime? Give you a comforting pat on the back and hand you the pill and a condom while telling you that it’s a-OK to keep fucking these men left and right without saying anything to either one of them about it? Shit like this is exactly how you continue to get your ass caught up and in trouble!”

  “I know that!” she exclaimed.

  “Do you?!”

  “YES, okay? YES! I told you that I never planned for it to happen like that, it just did. Originally, I made a promise to myself, one I had planned and tried so damn hard to keep, that after being with Adrian I would never go back to Nathan’s bed no matter what. And would finally break it off when I saw him again. I wanted to call off the wedding, give back the ring, the whole thing. After the way he treated me before he skipped town, not telling me where he had gone and then coming back to see you first. I finally realized that I just couldn’t continue doing it anymore, waiting for him not to piss me off or hurt me like he’s done for so long…”

  Sheila became pensive and pursed her lips while swallowing hard as she looked off into the distance.

  “But after he got out of that shower, wrapped in nothing but a towel, his dick was swollen like I had never seen before and it kept calling me somethin’ fierce, V--” She wrapped a hand around her neck and shut her eyes for a few seconds, remembering.

  “Oh fo
r the love of God.” She threw her hands up in the air and groaned so loudly that her employees began looking over their desks and into her office. She reached for the remote for the windows and pushed the button to draw the curtains. Then she tossed it across her desk and rattled her head. “There is no way in hell I didn’t murder someone in another lifetime. That’s got to be the only reason I’ve been forced to deal with this shit.”

  “It was just calling me,” Sheila continued, ignoring her; she raised her hand and balled a fist. “Begging for me to ride on top of it even when I tried like hell to ignore it.”

  “Shit--”

  “And we went around and around like a Merry-Go-Round and up and down and up and down like a sea-saw.”

  “I can’t believe this shit, I cannot believe this shit--”

  “Rocked back and forth like a rocking chair as he pushed all up inside of me while I straddled his lap.” She shut her eyes and pushed out her lips. “The moment I saw him,” she went on, “he just seemed to have all of this pent up energy and anger after being locked up in that cell. And I know that what we did was more about himself, and probably about you than it was about me, which it most often is. Even still, I managed to cave in like an idiot, just like I always do when it comes to him and the looks he gives. My body just can’t seem to resist him, or his hands, even if he’s not as good with them or his dick as he thinks he is compared to Adrian, who really showed me the way, V.”

  “It’s never ending--” She reached out for the button on her speaker and called for Samantha, who had yet to return to her desk.

  “For the first time I actually knew what it felt like to make love to someone in being with Adrian. I didn’t realize it the first time we were together, I just knew that it felt different. I couldn’t really understand why until that second time that morning. The second time is when I felt it hit me straight in the heart. And when we looked at each other as he held me--”

  “Okay, that’s it.” Vanessa shoved herself away from the desk and dropped her hands to her lap, shrugging. “I’m entirely fucking done with this conversation. We’re not girlfriends who can sit around and talk about this shit because I don’t give a damn who you’re fucking unless you’re trying for a triathlon and Maurice is next on the list. Look, you asked me before you started babbling on like an idiot what you should do? Here’s a thought, get your ass to the nearest clinic and make sure that the only thing you’ve been passing back and forth between these men is your body and nothing more.”

  “We use condoms.” She looked aside. “For the most part.”

  “What?”

  “Adrian and I used a condom the first time. But the second time just sort of happened and we weren’t prepared. And if I had reached for one with Nathan before we got started, he would’ve known something was up because we’ve barely used them throughout our entire relationship -- !”

  “Goodbye, Sheila,” she replied as she returned to her computer. “Whatever the hell happens to you as a result of this is on you and nobody else this time.”

  “Fine.” Sheila snatched her purse and stood up straight. “I just thought I could come down here for a little friendly advice since you weren’t trying to toss me out on my ass when I came to your house before --”

  “No.” She angrily dropped her hands to the keyboard. “Don’t play that victim bullshit here with me. You wanted to come here and boast about getting laid back to back, just like you wanted to boast about fucking Adrian the first time. You used blaming me as a bullshit excuse to get inside the building, which I’ll be forced to talk to security about again. Now leave.”

  Sheila stared at her before moving toward the door. “I was serious about needing some advice. Especially since I have to meet Adrian for lunch in an hour and he wants me to--”

  “LOOK, I just gave you some damn advice, alright? And I don’t care what Adrian wants. Get thee to a fucking clinic. If a virus isn’t what’s dangling between your legs, in nine months it’ll be something else.”

  Sheila smacked her purse against the door and flew down the hallway and toward the elevator.

  Vanessa sat back and turned her mouth downward, recalling every vile word Sheila had just relayed.

  “Blech!”

  She wiggled in her chair and reached down into one of her drawers for a bottle of antibacterial gel. She squeezed golf ball sized portions into both hands and rubbed it across every exposed part of her body. Just thinking of Sheila with either man, let alone both in the same day, made her skin crawl.

  Part Twenty-Eight

  A few hours later, Nikki breezed into her office and knocked on her door.

  “Hey V,” she called out. “Are you ready for lunch?”

  “Yeah, just a second,” Vanessa replied, never taking her eyes off of the computer screen while continuing to type out her memo. “Let me just get a few more words in here for my mother before she calls me out on it being too short to hand out to the employees, and then we can go.”

  “Alright.” Nikki took a seat on the couch and crossed her legs. Then she looked around the office and furrowed her brows. “Is there something different in here?” she asked. “The space looks so much bigger for some reason.”

  Vanessa paused. “The couch is smaller. I got rid of the old one yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess I just felt like I needed a change in here and the old one didn’t really fit the decorum anymore. But it’s still in storage because I can’t seem to get rid of it. Like a lot of things in my life that could use some getting rid of.” She sighed. “How was rehearsal today?”

  She bobbed her head and lifted her wrist to wave her hand back and forth. “It was okay. But the closer opening night gets, the more nerve wrecking everything else becomes.”

  “I can imagine.” She glanced over at Nikki before returning her eyes back to the computer. “In the meantime, who do you actually plan to take with you as your date that night?”

  She chucked. “Why are you asking that like I wouldn’t take William?”

  “Oh I don’t know. Maybe because after what you told me last night about still being in love with Oscar, I thought he might be an option for you now too? Or, again?” She finished typing up her last word and dropped back in her chair.

  Nikki made a face and turned her head. “Don’t start with me about that right now, V.”

  “I’m not starting anything,” she said. “But what you said gave me a little food for thought before I finally managed to fall asleep, and I do think after everything that went down in the Hamptons and in front of my mother, that I have at least some right to ask that kind of question. Now it’s more than just still being in love with him, isn’t it?”

  Nikki dropped her eyes down to her hands and wiggled her fingers against each other to keep herself distracted. After a few seconds of silence passed between them, she stopped and lifted her head.

  “We slept together the same day we all came back home from the Hamptons,” she said. “I didn’t even have time to unpack my bags yet before he showed up at William’s door asking to talk to me about his impending divorce. William had gone out to see about his daughter in Connecticut and so it was just the two of us.”

  “Are you telling me that you and Oscar fucked somewhere inside of William’s house?” she asked. Her non answer told Vanessa everything she didn’t want to know. She rolled her eyes up into her head and gagged while muttering, “Great.”

  “But it was one time,” stated Nikki. “One. And then a few more after.”

  “Good grief, Nik.”

  “He keeps saying that he wants more than that.”

  “And you believe him this time?”

  “I want to,” she said. “But I also feel like William might be better for both me and my career. Todos es simplemente tan complicada. What made you bring him up, anyway?”

  Vanessa slammed her head back against the chair and exhaled nosily. “Melanie,” she told her. “I didn’t want to talk about it last night becau
se I was still too pissed to even bring it up, but I saw her with Mo when I was on my way to work yesterday. She was practically humping his leg outside of that new popup market around the corner from my office, and making snide remarks when I asked her what the hell she was doing hanging around with him when she’s still married.”

  Nikki arched her brows. “What did Maurice have to say about it?”

  “He couldn’t say too much since he had to be all grateful to her thirsty ass for bailing him out of jail.”

  Her mouth fell open. “What?”

  “Yeah. The bail was apparently 40k. He only had half on him to get out and claims that she came up with the other half.”

  Nikki laughed, though unintentionally. “Are you serious, V?”

  “As a fucking heart attack in an old folks home.” She tightened her arms around her chest. “That bitch is planning something, I can just feel it. She’s like Nathan, only sneakier because she hides her shit behind that blond hair and those mysterious eyes and that perfect fucking smile.”

  “I know that smile,” said Nikki. “I hate that smile.”

  “I’m beginning to hate it too. I can’t even look at her cover anymore without wanting to throw darts at it or send it straight down into the shredder.”

  Nikki sighed deeply, afraid to ask her next question, but feeling the need to do so anyway.

  “Do you think she’s sleeping with him?”

  Vanessa quickly shook her head. “No. Now that I’ve seen the way he looks at her, I don’t think he has any desire to see her naked.”

  Nikki tilted her head and questioned. “Really?”

  Vanessa wrinkled her nose, irritated at the lift in her voice. “He might have some, he has a dick for fucks’ sake. But I don’t think he wants to have sex with her. Not like he still wants it from me.” She rested her elbow on her chair and pointed to her chest with her index. “I own that dick,” she said. “Even if we’re not together right now, I still own that dick. And his heart. She’s never getting either one.”

  Nikki smiled. “That sounds like a bad rumble in the Bronx.”

  “More like a beat down in the Bronx. Not that someone like her would actually be caught dead outside of Manhattan unless it’s back to the Hamptons.”